Telecommunication carriers provide customers with emergency calling services. In an emergency, a caller dials 911 from a telephone and the call is routed by the carrier to a public safety answering point (PSAP) facility. In addition, when an emergency call is placed a location process is automatically initiated in order to determine the location of the telephone. For instance, landline callers can be located based on their phone number. In the case of a wireless caller, the location can be determined by a variety of different methods, such as such as providing the location of the cell tower servicing a call to a PSAP, triangulation techniques, and a global position system (GPS) located within the mobile phone.
However, if a hearing or speech impaired individual dials 911, his or her location can be determined but he or she will not be able to communicate with the 911 operator. Alternatively, a hearing or speech impaired individual can place an emergency call to a telecommunications relay service (TRS). TRS (also known as Relay Service, or IP-Relay) allows people who are hearing impaired or speech disabled to place calls to standard telephone users. In an emergency, a hearing impaired person places an emergency call to the TRS, which in turn places a call to the PSAP. The TRS operator then relays typed messages from the hearing impaired caller as voice messages to the PSAP, and vice-versa.
While it is possible to determine the location of a caller who places an emergency call by dialing 911 regardless of whether a landline or mobile phone is used, present systems cannot determine the location of an emergency call placed by a caller who places an emergency call through a TRS. Therefore, if a hearing impaired individual needs to call 911, the TRS operator must ask for the street address, city, and state that the call is originating from. If this information is not provided, then the TRS operator will be unable to process the call.